Chapter 156: A Victoriously Violent Overture
Vuvi and Pip skid to a halt, throwing up mud and grass, turning the baroness inside the shield dome.
Off to the side of it, Eris still hangs absolutely motionless in mid-air as the battle rages on without her.
Syraleth steps out of the dome and the wall of magic seals itself shut behind her with a faint, glassy ripple. She glances toward the empty horizon one last time and pouts, her face clearly wrapped in disappointment.
"I was really hoping Vexena would finally show her face by now." she says, almost wistful. But then the unrequited longing and hunger creeps back into her expression, ruby-red eyes flickering with raw power as they turn toward Pip like a drawn blade. "But I can’t afford to wait any longer. I’ll just have to deal with her when the time comes. Let’s finish this..."
"You’re welcome to try!" Vuvi snarls, slamming a fresh acid-round into her Boombuster.
Syraleth strolls toward them, completely unhurried, heels clacking a slow, confident rhythm across the upturned path, the field smoke around her as she steps over shattered armor and torn limbs, flowing amongst the drifting embers like she’s out for an evening walk.
The team draws into a tightening circle around her as she moves.
"You’ll regret this," Veena snarls, violet light crackling at her fingertips. "My mother is gonna rip your throat out."
"Not if I do it first." Maribelle says, teeth bared as she snarls at Syraleth.
Bilorial’s palms ignite with crimson flame. Maribelle grips her sword tight, blade humming with pent-up light.
"Stand back, I’m about shooting her face off." Vuvi says as she levels her Boombuster directly at Syraleth’s nose.
"By all means..." Syraleth says, flicking two fingers lazily, beckoning them to attack. "Indulge me."
Maribelle doesn’t hesitate for a single moment.
Magic energy erupts from the ground beneath her, launching her in a blitz of crimson-white light, her blade seeming to cut reality itself as she blazes toward Syraleth in the center of the ring. A blur of silver hair and glowing steel, closing the distance before anyone else can even move, blade sweeping clean through Syraleth’s throat in a single, decisive, perfectly executed arc that should, by every rule of combat, have ended the entire confrontation right there.
The Baroness dissolves into a swirl of smoke instead, folding around the blade before fading into the breeze like she was never anything more than mist and malice to begin with.
Maribelle’s eyes go wide in shock and until she’s torn from her confusion by a scream.
"BRACE!" Bilorial hollers.
Above them, a ring of rotating glyphs blooms open in the lavender-gold, afternoon sky, spinning and pulsing with power around the real Syraleth, who had been hovering high overhead the entire time, never once inside that circle at all, drawing in her power.
The baroness grins, smile filled with venom as she brings her raised hand down in one sharp flick.
Penelo and Lula watch in frozen horror as a massive barrage of magical orbs comes screaming down out of the heavens like a hundred falling stars, shimmering trails of light streaking down from the sky as multiple magical elements scream down at their teammates.
Veena, Bilorial, and Xenara each throw up shields over the group at once. Three overlapping domes of shimmering, demonic light formed up around them, layered atop each other like the petals of some desperate, dying flower, absorbing impact after impact as the world itself shudders and cracks beneath them.
The noise of the overlapping explosions swallows everything across the battlefield. Every scream for help. Every shouted warning. Every single word anyone tries to mutter under the straining shield dome. Reality collapsing into one long, continuous roll of soul-shaking thunder that rolls through the valley, rattling the tree line and ruining the hearing of anybody within earshot..
When the dust finally settles, Xenara and Bilorial are on their knees, shields flickering, cracking, creaking and crumbling across its edges.
Veena has collapsed entirely where she lays unconscious in the mud. Sera and Vuvi both scramble to her as soon as they see her.
"Vee!" Vuvi yells out, her own hearing muffled by the onslaught.
"Princess! Wake up!" Sera shouts as the two haul Veena upright, checking for injuries with shaking hands.
The demon-kin’s eyes flutter open as she clutches at her ears. "Where’s..." She blinks, scanning the wreckage. "Where’s Pip?!"
Nobody answers.
Nobody can find him.
Then, faint, shallow and deeply worried... a single, solemn beep.
All eyes turn to the center of the battlefield where they find Pip lying between the two kitsune twins and the monks, who are still chanting, still deep in unbroken concentration, robes fluttering around them, revealing bodies covered covered in magic-crystals grafted into their skin.
"Mother’s mercy!" Xenara shudders, "What have they done?"
"Heresy!" Bilorial scowls. "Profane use of the Mother’s magics."
Pip sits up slowly, disoriented, gears grinding faintly as his systems reboot one by one, and his eyes finally find Vuvi across the smoking field. He gives a relieved whistle and lunges to his feet with a whir of servos, sprinting toward her, arms already reaching out toward his maker.
And he freezes. Mid-stride, hands still outstretched toward his Vuvi, every joint locking at once like a metal puppet having its strings suddenly cut.
Syraleth appears beside him in a curl of smoke, beaming with bliss, and cups his frozen face in both hands with something that has long surpassed simple affection, her thumbs tracing slow, reverently along the seams of his jaw.
She leans in close, eyes half-lidded, and presses a long, lingering kiss to his faceplate, holding it there far longer than the moment could ever justify, sucking air through her nose as she sweetly savoures the very presence of Pip.
"There you are, my darling!" she utters breathlessly, pressing her body passionately against his. "Finally where you belong."
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF HIM! BITCH!" Vuvi screams, voice cracking, already running full-spring across the wreckage with her Boombuster gripped in white-knuckled fury, the whole team surging forward behind her.
Sera, Maribelle, Bilorial, Xenara, even a still-shaky Veena hauling herself upright to join the charge, with Raikya and her frosthound joining from the rear. None of them slowing for the smoke, the ruined ground, or the exhaustion biting at every limb.
Syraleth turns to face them, mouth split in wide, wicked grin. Wings spread lazily behind her like a curtain closing on the first act of a play she’s already certain she’s going to win, one arm still draped possessively over Pip’s frozen shoulders.
"Allow me to wrap this up, darling. " She says lovingly into Pip’s faceplate, unperturbed by the small army bearing down on her. "You and I have a lot of catching up to do."